The Nutcracker Tickets:

The Nutcracker is a two-act ballet, originally choreographed by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov with a score by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The libretto is adapted from E.T.A. Hoffmann's story "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King". The Nutcracker premiered on Friday, December 18th, 1892 at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, double-billed with Tchaikovsky's opera, Iolanta.

The Nutcracker has enjoyed enormous popularity since the mid-1900s. It is now performed by countless ballet companies, primarily during the Christmas holiday season, especially in the United States. Tchaikovsky's score is one of his most famous compositions, in particular the pieces featured in the suite. The score is noted for its use of the celesta, an instrument that the composer had already employed in his much lesser known symphonic ballad The Voyevoda. Although known primarily as the featured solo instrument in the "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" from Act II of The Nutcracker, the celesta is also employed elsewhere in the same act.